Wild immunology addresses how immune responses vary in the real world of polymorphism, polyparasitism and commensalisms. Wi encompasses two complimentary approaches: one is to take the tremendous mechanistic detail that immunology has elucidated from inbred model organisms in the laboratory, and apply it to the study of individuals living in wild populations; the other is to expand the remit of laboratory-based experimental work to address the effects of genetic, parasite, and environmental variability and their interactions on the immune system. Wi supports extending immunology to new models that are suitable for probing the ecology and evolution of defence. The full diversity of defence systems may presently be underestimated. More in Wi Questions.
Wild Immunology is part of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and the Centre for Immunity Infection and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh, but significant Wild immunology is also carried out in the labs of our collaborators across the United Kingdom (see Wild Immunologists)
